Frans Zwartjes

Frans Zwartjes' adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, originally produced for stage by the actresses Josée Ruiter and Çanci Geraerdts.

Zwartjes' reflections on Beckett, situated between trees.

A strangely-dressed man reaches for some sorbet and then eats it; A playful, expertly-edited excercise from Zwartjes.

Zwartjes made many films without dialogue or sound. The music can however be very important. Zwartjes composes it himself, sometimes together with his brother Rudolf and Lodewijk de Boer. Audition is a fine example of a Zwartjes film with an important soundtrack. It is a visual improvisation of cinematography and acting. There is hardly a ‘story line’. A man and a woman watch another woman singing, predominantly in exciting black and white images.

Spectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes’ main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction and repulsion. It manifests itself in humiliation and abuse (such Pentimento), but also in cool eroticism or natural physicality. Zwartjes’ goal is not to explain or designate this relationship. Rather it is the subject that Zwartjes uses to describe his world. In an article on Zwartjes, filmmaker and student George Schouten compares Zwartjes to the Italian writer Alberto Moravia. For both, sex is their way of dealing with reality. It is the subject by which they define their world. And for Zwartjes, it is also the subject with which he can display and develop his cinematic talent. (eyefilm.nl)

Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)

Frans Zwartjes' adaptation of Euripides' tragedy, originally produced for stage by the actresses Josée Ruiter and Çanci Geraerdts.

Zwartjes' reflections on Beckett, situated between trees.

A strangely-dressed man reaches for some sorbet and then eats it; A playful, expertly-edited excercise from Zwartjes.

Zwartjes made many films without dialogue or sound. The music can however be very important. Zwartjes composes it himself, sometimes together with his brother Rudolf and Lodewijk de Boer. Audition is a fine example of a Zwartjes film with an important soundtrack. It is a visual improvisation of cinematography and acting. There is hardly a ‘story line’. A man and a woman watch another woman singing, predominantly in exciting black and white images.

Spectator is one of the early masterpieces by Zwartjes. The film explicitly shows one of Frans Zwartjes’ main themes: the relationship between husband and wife. It is a relationship that is strongly marked by power and domination, sexual attraction and repulsion. It manifests itself in humiliation and abuse (such Pentimento), but also in cool eroticism or natural physicality. Zwartjes’ goal is not to explain or designate this relationship. Rather it is the subject that Zwartjes uses to describe his world. In an article on Zwartjes, filmmaker and student George Schouten compares Zwartjes to the Italian writer Alberto Moravia. For both, sex is their way of dealing with reality. It is the subject by which they define their world. And for Zwartjes, it is also the subject with which he can display and develop his cinematic talent. (eyefilm.nl)

Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)

Set on the landing and the stairs of Zwartjes’ new house, then still empty, in The Hague. The filmmaker suggests a mysterious and complex space by using a ‘floating’ camera to film a number of crawling, creeping personages. (MUBI)

An experimental short from Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes.

Three women, wear makeup or masks, having a meal.

A man in drag sits on a couch holding a fan. The wallpaper behind him is floral patterned. Although the man does little more than looking around and waving his fan, Zwartjes created enormous tension.

The central element in this film is formed by the preparation for and execution of a performance. The performance, a parachute jump, is carried out by an artist (Perrenet) and his girlfriend during the opening of an exhibition. As spectators to the performance, which takes place in the artist’s studio, an art dealer and several friends have been invited. The art dealer enters first, followed by Armand, who looks at some paintings made by Zwartjes; they spout the usual ‘gallery nonsense’. The art dealer appears most interested in the girlfriend. ‘My latest creation’ is how Amand introduces her. The guests who arrive thereafter are introduced in short, independent sections.

First film by Paul de Nooijer, in collaboration with his artistic father Frans Zwartjes. Moving Stills shows a series of photographs by Françoise de Nooijer, which are joined, by means of editing and colour effects, and turned into a moving picture. The erotic image gets an explosive charge. (filmcommission.nl)

Two girls nestle beside each other on a couch and try desperately to conceal their mutual craving. Sexuality is suggested through the weird rhythm of the film's editing and the tactile quality of the images. - MIFF

A man and his female helper lather a blindfolded woman's naked body with various foodstuffs.

An experimental short from Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes.

In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. "Pentimento" is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state.

In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. "Pentimento" is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state.

In a monumental building a group of scientists submit women to obscure experiments in which sexuality and cruelty constantly merge into one another. "Pentimento" is an art-historical term for a hidden image underneath the actual image giving an indication of how the latter evolved to its current state.

To mark his ninetieth birthday, EYE has restored Zwartjes’ very first film, originally shot on Super-8 and long thought lost. Zwartjes started his career as a violinist and visual artist. He took photographs, made music and built instruments – but only really broke through with his equally craftsmanlike films.

A selection of never-before-seen cinema sketches by Zwartjes, compiled by Stanley Schtinter with music from Zwartjes' record Tapes I.

Film in three parts. A man and a woman, Trix Zwartjes and Lodewijk de Boer (Zwartjes’s regular actors) circle around each other in a house and outside at the water side. They attract and reject each other.

Frans Zwartjes and his wife explore their new home, and the sexual tension they've brought with them to it.

"The Great Magician" - A portrait of Frans Zwartjes (1927-2017), sometimes called 'the most important experimental filmmaker of his time' by the American essayist Susan Sontag.

A woman plays with a bird as the camera's gaze is drawn to her legs.

An experimental film by Dutch filmmaker Frans Zwartjes.

Short film by Frans Zwartjes

First full-length experimental feature by filmmaker Zwartjes about an actress, played by Willeke van Ammelrooy, who during the whole film, in continuously changing moods, is busy in her room. Eventually, she is made an offer by telephone. But what offer does the actress get?

Short, abstract film of a woman in a toilet. Black and white film with some tinted shots.

Observations of a woman with a Japanese mask dressed in a large painted robe. She moves along the ground amid a (photographed or painted) backdrop of trees and a Japanese window. In the beginning, she is restless and her movements occasionally reveal her naked body beneath the robe. After a climax, also in the music, she is quiet and introverted.

Film shot entirely in the open air with women walking around a garden, life-sized photos in the grass and people at the table. A film from the series Home Sweet Home.

A short documentary about dancer and choreographer Rudi van Dantzig.

An experimental look at the sexual life of a couple.

In this experimental film we see people in varying combinations walking and crawling through sand and grass and along the waterfront in a very quick assembly.

Frans Zwartjes' two visions of womanhood in Behind Your Walls have all the febrile frustration associated with his previous work. Flesh looks like crisp paper about to be despoiled, a torpid heat reduces movement to fidgets and hesitations. - MIFF